Sunday, April 30, 2017

Welcome to the April readalong discussion of The Vegetarian by Han Kang. I managed to read the whole thing during the Readathon, which officially makes it the first and only book I've ever started and completed in one Readathon. Yay! If you chatted about it online with me, thank you! I hope you had a chance to read it and that you'll participate in our discussion.

There is A LOT going on in this under-200-pages novel. Like any brilliant story, the setup is deceptively simple: Yeong-hye, a seemingly ordinary wife, decides to stop eating meat. NBD, right? Well, as her husband says, it wouldn't be a big deal if she was doing it for "socially acceptable" reasons like losing weight or because her doctor told her she should. Instead, she does it because she had a dream–a dream that gradually seems to infect and wreak havoc on the lives of those around her.

And now, onto the discussion questions! Feel free to answer any or all of these, or post your own burning questions in the comments.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

First of all! What did you think of the book in general?

We never get to hear directly from Yeong-hye except in brief snippets of dream and memory. Why do you think the author tells her story through the lens of other people? Do you think this is effective?

Yeong-hye says she stopped eating meat because she had a dream. What do you think the dream was actually about?

As the story goes on, Yeong-hye seems to be transforming into a plant herself (or at least wanting to). Is this an art-imitating-life situation? It seems like her husband treated her as little more than a plant to begin with.

Yeong-hye's brother-in-law may seem more sympathetic to her than her husband, but is he?

There's a surprising amount of violence, both sexual and physical, in this book. Why do you think that is?

There are a lot of themes in the novel: obsession, dreams, conformity and acting "normal," choosing to act morally and choosing not to. Which of these themes stood out for you the most?

Finally, what did you think of the ending? Does it negate the previous sections of the book?

Before putting this discussion to rest, I HIGHLY recommend you read this review of The Vegetarian by an actual vegetarian familiar with Korean culture.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

One of the reasons why I picked The Vegetarian by Han Kang for our April readalong was because it sounded like the perfect Readathon book: something short and fast enough that you could read it in one sitting.

Well, the Readathon is only a few days away and, because the library holds gods have not been kind to me, I haven't had a chance to read The Vegetarian yet. So I had a thought: since the whole idea behind The Vegetarian was to read it during the Readathon anyway, why not do a live readalong on Saturday??

I'll be using #TheVegetarianBBI during the Readathon to track my progress (in addition to the #Readathon hashtag) and I hope you'll join me on any platform you prefer: Twitter, Facebook, Litsy, Instagram, whatever!

Already read the book or aren't planning on participating in Saturday's 24 Hour Readathon? No worries, I'll have a traditional discussion post up here, hopefully before Sunday.

Thanks for your patience this month and chat with you all on Saturday!